US Champs 9: So's masterpiece, Fabi & Naka crash

What a round! Wesley So played an exquisite piece and then
queen sacrifice to beat Jeffery Xiong while his rivals Hikaru Nakamura and
Fabiano Caruana were undone by Alexander Onischuk and Varuzhan Akobian. Fabi in particular somehow
contrived to lose a position where he was up two connected passed pawns.
Elsewhere there were also wild games that on another day would have gripped our
attention, as Ray Robson and Daniel Naroditsky blew huge advantages.

Like a boss! Wesley So put in a supreme performance in Round 9 | photo: Lennart Ootes

One of the most amazing days of chess we’ve seen in a long
time took place in St. Louis on Friday:

Wesley So’s stunner

The consolation for Xiong was that he was far from alone in missing how he was going to lose | photo: Austin Fuller

We have to start with Wesley So’s win against World Junior Champion
Jeffery Xiong, which, with more than a hint of understatement, Wesley summed up with, “I think it’s a good game”. Azeri Grandmaster Rauf
Mamedov put it a little differently:

While German International Master Nikolas Lubbe was just trying
to fathom the depth of the game:

Check it out with video commentary by Spanish Grandmaster
Pepe Cuenca:

That was Wesley So’s 65th game unbeaten (he can end the
tournament by matching MVL’s 67 game unbeaten streak from last year), but he
was more focused on ending a drawing streak of four games. He also tried to buoy up his opponent:

I’d like to thank the Lord for a win because before this
game I didn’t have great expectations… Jeffery is a good kid, he’s really
talented. He only started playing chess like seven years ago. These losses will
help him to learn and get better.

When it was mentioned that the game was reminiscent of
Wesley’s crushing of Garry Kasparov in a blitz game in the Ultimate Blitz at
the end of last year’s Championship, Wesley joked:

I’m really sad we don’t have that blitz thing this year –
where’s Garry when you need him!

If we did have it, though, the format of having the Top 3
finishers taking on Garry might not have worked out as well as it did in 2016,
since Nakamura and Caruana both crashed and burned.

Top 10 stars suffer shock defeats

2006 US Champion Onischuk managed to grind down none other than Nakamura | photo: Austin Fuller

The frustration of seven draws in a row seems to have told
on Hikaru Nakamura, since from early on in his game against Alexander Onischuk
he began to throw the kitchen sink at his opponent. Pawns were sacrificed one
after another, though it could still have been happily ever after for Hikaru if
not for his choice on move 33:

He needed to play the immediate 33.Qe5!, but instead went
for the tempting 33.Nxd5!?. The knight can’t be captured because of the threat
of a queen fork on e5 in many lines, but Onischuk found 33…Qg7!, hitting b2, when
after 34.Nc3 Qxf7 Black had two extra pawns, and although Nakamura had some
compensation it was clear he was in for a tough fight ahead.

By move 43 those two pawns had been reduced to one, and it
seemed as though Nakamura was winning the fight. His time began to run out, though, with the lack of an extra time control at move 60 a factor. The other factor
was Onischuk’s exceptional technique, which he’d demonstrated to save and gain
half points in previous rounds. Resignation came on move 75, with the f-pawn
set to cost White a piece and the game:

Onischuk also had a good line in understatement when he
commented, “It was an eventful game”!

Who could imagine they would both lose on the same day... | photo: Lennart Ootes

While that game was simply the kind of thing that can happen
when a top player is pressing hard for a win, the Akobian-Caruana encounter
defied belief, though time trouble is perhaps the closest you can get to a
rational explanation. Both players were very short on time when Fabiano Caruana
first seized the initiative on move 31:

31…a4! was a fine spot, since 32.bxa4 loses immediately to
32…Nc4!. Fabiano would go on to bluff Akobian a few moves later and by the time
the players reached the time control he had two extra connected passed pawns
and was heading into the final two rounds of the US Open only half a point
behind Wesley So.

Varuzhan Akobian is joint leader of the US Championship after scoring four wins | photo: Lennart Ootes

Then, as Akobian put it, “a miracle happened”. His first inkling that the game wasn’t over came from the
way Fabiano was playing:

He was taking a lot of time for some reason. I figured maybe
it’s not so straightforward a win.

Then the first objective chess reason for hope came after he
played 50.Rb1:

50...c4! is the best move, since 51.Nd4 looks good but is
met by 51…Qc5!, with the point that White can’t take on b6 since Rd1+ would then win
the queen. Instead, though, Caruana played 50…Qe6, when 51.Nc7! left Akobian
winning the b6-pawn. Black was still better, of course, but it was understandable that Fabi failed to convert his advantage while playing on increments.

There was no time for either player to think, but Varuzhan instantly
saw the winning 77.Qa7+. He said it took him a little longer to realise 77…Kh8
simply loses to 78.Nf7+ Kg8 79.Nh6+ or 78…Kg7 79.Nd6+, winning the queen. In the
game there followed 77…Kh6 78.Ng4+ Kg5 79.Qxh7, and, just like that, Varuzhan
Akobian was leading the tournament alongside Wesley So!

Caruana and Nakamura's woes are reflected in the live rating list, with Kramnik, MVL, Anand and Karjakin all moving up:

In other news

On any other day the highlight of Round 9 might have been
the other games, since apart from the Berlin draw in Kamsky-Shankland we got
two crazy Sicilians.

Robson-Zherebukh illustrated some of the dangers of opening preparation | photo: Lennart Ootes

Yaroslav Zherebukh thought afterwards he’d been in his
preparation until move 22 of his game against Ray Robson, but he couldn’t
recall it. A couple of moves later he made a decision he described as “horrible”:

24. ... 0-0?! Somehow it worked out ok in the end, with Zherebukh
remarking, “For some reason the possibility I could lose the game never crossed
my mind!” He also talked about how the loss the day before had affected him:

I was devastated. I took a lot of consolation from close
people to me… and three whiskey shots as well!

That game was almost normal compared to Daniel Naroditsky
blowing a position where he had Alexander Shabalov’s king stranded in the
middle of the board and an advantage the computer evaluated at +5.70.

The Women’s Championship simply couldn’t compete with that
drama, but a draw between the leaders Nazi Paikidze and Sabina Foisor and wins
for Anna Zatonskih and Tatev Abrahamyan set the tournament up perfectly for the
final two rounds. Irina Krush might have joined Paikidze and Foisor in the lead, but couldn’t
convert an extra pawn against Carissa Yip.

The final two rounds of the US Championship on
Saturday and Sunday (with potential tiebreaks on Monday) promise to be
thrilling. Wesley So is the obvious favourite (Kamsky with White, Naroditsky
with Black), since unless he loses a game he can no longer be caught by Caruana
or Nakamura. Now, though, we have to look at less familiar rivals – Akobian
(Robson with White, Nakamura with Black) and Onischuk (Xiong with White, Kamsky
with Black). Could we get a shock US Champion?

Fabiano Caruana's reign as US Champion is slipping away - he must win his remaining two games and hope the stars align in his favour | photo: Spectrum Studios

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